The Faction kidnaps a group of historians, forcing MacLaren and the team to extract their location from a critically injured Hall.

*As Philip and other historians receive their latest update, a TELL countdown begins and one of the group is overwritten. The archivist welcomes the new Traveler to the 21st, then Dawn and other Faction agents enter with guns drawn and take the historians away.

*Hall is standing in a drained swimming pool alone when MacLaren appears and tells him he's dying. At HQ, Marcy, joined by Boyd, is working on actual-Hall's critically-injured body. Trevor finds Philip's last known location (a high school), and MacLaren and Carly go to investigate.

*Dawn enters the room Philip is locked in, and gives him a "we're not so different, you and I" speech to try to convince him to cooperate with Faction in saving the world from the Director, but he's not having it, and wants to know where Kyle is.

*At the police station, Jeff's sergeant tells him he's gotten the DUI charges dropped, but Jeff is still on probation and to get his job back he'll need to show proof of reform, including getting someone from Social Services to sign off on his rehab.

*Dawn brings Kyle to Philip and leaves them together. Kyle admits that he gave them what they asked for - info on an impending TELL which they could avert.

*Back at HQ, in his vision-pool, Hall realizes he's been hooked up to a black box so MacLaren can extract info from him.

*At the high school, Carly and MacLaren find the update room and play the recording. MacLaren starts to get drawn in by it and gets a nosebleed, but Carly shuts it down.

*Jeff arrives at David's. David is nervous in light of all their past interactions, but Jeff promises he's a new man, that he hasn't drunk in a week, and needs David's help as a social worker.

*Vision-Hall tells vision-MacLaren he remembers being in a car with Luca, entering the school to look for Kyle and finding only a bloody comm on a chair, and the image of the comm appears on the HQ's black box screen. Flashback Hall reminds Luca that Protocol 3 is suspended where Faction is involved (i.e., shoot to kill without awaiting specific instructions from the Director), then there's a shootout and Hall flees.

*At David's, Jeff tries to get David to sign off on his forms, but David says if Jeff wants his help he'll have to let him put in the work of actually helping, and asks him to join him for a walk.

*Hall remembers getting shot climbing over a chain-link fence escaping Faction, then remembers that Luca and Kyle betrayed him, and the black box reveals their faces to Trevor.

*Philip tells his captors to tell Dawn he's ready to talk.

*Vision-Hall talks to Vision-Luca, then realizes that the pool looks familiar, that it's in an abandoned juvie hall that he and Luca once used as a hideout, and the address (532 Industrial Parkway) appears on the black box. Trevor and Marcy leave to join the team there, and Boyd stays with Hall.

*David takes Jeff to meet some of his clients, but then a child messengers Jeff to go provide tactical support at the black box address. He lies to David about needing to go to an AA meeting but promises to work with him more another day.

*Philip is taken to another room to be interrogated by Dawn, but his cooperation was just a ploy and he fights his way out and makes a run for it. Luca and Kyle catch up with him and are about to shoot him, but Carly and Jeff arrive in time and shoot Kyle and Luca. They send Philip to go free the other historians while they go to help the rest of the team who are pinned down in a firefight.

*Philip chases down Dawn and demands the keys to the cells. Back at the firefight, Trevor has another few moments of blanking out. Dawn tells Philip that turning her over to the Director is no different than killing her, that she's sincere about them needing to work together, and when another Faction member approaches Philip from behind she yells at him not to shoot Philip, and then she escapes while Philip's back is turned.

*Jeff finds that Mitch, the anti-Traveler conspiracy group leader was one of the kidnappers.

*MacLaren calls Boyd to tell her historian (Nathan) and the other historians are all fine, and tells him to let Hall know. She tells Hall that he saved everyone, and Vision-Hall lies down in a field; the image of a tree appears in the black box, then fades to darkness as he flatlines.

*Jeff drives Carly, and she notices a present in the back of his car. It was a present from original-Jeff for Jeff Jr.. Carly tells him about having seen his new foster parents, and that he's in a happy environment now.

*Back at HQ, Philip throws away his yellow pills and stares at himself in the mirror.

I wonder if Faction are the anti-vaxxers of time travel? Like, they keep saying that the Director's Travelers have done nothing to improve the future, but do they take for granted the improvements that are already part of their changed timeline such as everyone not dying in the Shelter 41 collapse and whatever other mass disaster events they've averted?

What occurs to me is that both the Director and Faction sides--whatever they do, it's not working. I think the Director has better odds and resources so it'll win, but no matter what anybody does, the future still sucks. So either everybody comes up with a new plan or they just accept that the future sucks because humans suck and there's nothing they can do except flee to the past for safety and a better life.posted by jenfullmoon at 7:13 AM on December 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

Pretty sure that swimming pool Hall is trapped in is the same swimming pool Haller was trapped in during the first episode of Legion.posted by urbanwhaleshark at 5:04 PM on December 28, 2018

Now I'm just paranoid about how our team doesn't seem to recognize that 001 could potentially be over-writing the people the Faction grabs. I think it leaves people without a team, like Grace and Jeff 2.0 especially vulnerable to being replaced.

this was a nice episode and a good end though poignant for Hall. I was wondering when he'll show up again. His kind of character is one that's hard to like but ultimately important for the cast, so it's good that they made him useful one last time.

It does seem like Faction definitely takes for granted that without all these changes Travelers have made to the timeline they wouldn't even exist.posted by numaner at 3:18 PM on January 8, 2019 [1 favorite]

Well, I think Kyle was lying. I don’t think teams get to review old cases, and I’m not sure that once the future is changed, anyone has the ability to look at the details. So the Faction has no idea how much worse it would have been without the teamsposted by corb at 9:20 AM on January 23, 2019